First grade!

This great big girl of mine started first grade on Monday. This is her waiting for the bus on the first day. (She's wearing the first day of school dress that I made - we have a tradition of the girls picking out the fabric for their first day dresses. I love the snails she picked.) I guess first grade is going okay so far. It's a little hard to tell, because she'll only sometimes talk about her day. I think it's a big adjustment, though - for one thing, she doesn't get to play all day long like in the summer, and for another, I think it's probably more work and a little less fun than kindergarten was. Plus her beloved best friend isn't in her class this year, so she's bummed about that. At least she still gets to sit with him on the bus. Consequently, she's been pretty grumpy in the afternoons this week. This is a picture of the girls together before school started:

After school now, this is NOT what they look like. Imagine those two adorable children screaming at one another, and that's more like it. A is tired and cranky after her long day, but wants to play, and M has enjoyed eight hours of playing anything she wants with no one ordering her around ;), and wants to continue. Hopefully their moods will settle out over the next few weeks....

I've made good progress on the new room this week, though. I made the curtains, which I did not enjoy at all. They really aren't my best work, either, but they could be worse. The fabric's cute, anyway. I don't have any pictures, but it's this turtle fabric.

But the way more exciting thing is that I completed my quilted wall hanging. It took me a very long time to come up with a plan that I liked, but I'm really happy with how it turned out. It's all fabrics from the Clothworks line except for the binding (which was something random from Joann's). So this will be hanging on the wall soon, and the redecoration will be complete!

And I've totally been bitten by the quilting bug, and I'm thinking about making quilts for the guest room and our room. I'm not sure if I'll actually quilt them myself, though - I have a friend/neighbor with a long arm machine, so I might do that instead. It's fun to plan things, anyway!